1940, Housing, And Why this Matters

As Chris Brown reports on the CBC there has been a major brouhaha regarding the City of Vancouver’s 12,000 homes that were built before 1940. In a city that had almost a thousand demolition permits taken out in 2016 (the majority in Dunbar-Southlands) the past is getting-well, lost. Of those demolished, two-thirds of the houses were built before 1940.

In response, the City has created a “Character Home zoning review” proposing to discourage the demolition of this older housing stock by permitting replacement houses to be sizably smaller. This has not gone over well with “Many homeowners, developers, pro-density groups and even key heritage advocates are all pushing back hard against the “preservationist” plan now under discussion.”

Arguments against the designation include stifling architectural design, and freezing much-needed locations for townhouses and family focused higher density. The City of Vancouver’s Director of Planing Gil Kelley notes “The younger generation is feeling sqSo opening up new options for affordability and different living option choices for them is really critical — even as people here who are older are trying to hang on to what they already know.”

There have been some issues regarding the character home designation-how will property owners be compensated for reduced returns on the property? And if a character home is deemed to be beyond rebuilding (and there will need to be guidelines to define that) can those single family lots be filled with more family friendly and affordable higher density housing forms? And in the end, can we create a new way of looking at density in this Character Home zoning review that can move the large single family areas of the city into something that is denser and more attainable for newly formed families? Our future depends on that.

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9 thoughts on “1940, Housing, And Why this Matters”

The issue shouldn’t be couched in the black / white choice to preserve or not to preserve, but on what is possible on the land that surrounds character — and all — houses in RS zones. A character home can be moved within a lot or preserved while dividing it into suites and building more housing in the back yard.

The central issue with that is economic: How do you recoup the costs of moving the structure and / or renovating it? The answer is obviously by allowing more housing onto the lot (or consolidated lots), with possibly a bonus unit for assuming these costs.

The city is its own worst enemy regarding affordability because it protects the sanctity of detached homes on 80% of the private residential land in this town. It is not alone in the Metro, and therefore the affordability crisis will only get worse, foreign buyers or no foreign buyers.

What is a stock split? Why do stocks split?
“All publicly-traded companies have a set number of shares that are outstanding on the stock market. A stock split is a decision by the company’s board of directors to increase the number of shares that are outstanding by issuing more shares to current shareholders. For example, in a 2-for-1 stock split, every shareholder with one stock is given an additional share. So, if a company had 10 million shares outstanding before the split, it will have 20 million shares outstanding after a 2-for-1 split.

A stock’s price is also affected by a stock split. After a split, the stock price will be reduced since the number of shares outstanding has increased. In the example of a 2-for-1 split, the share price will be halved. Thus, although the number of outstanding shares and the stock price change, the market capitalization remains constant.

A stock split is usually done by companies that have seen their share price increase to levels that are either too high or are beyond the price levels of similar companies in their sector. The primary motive is to make shares seem more affordable to small investors even though the underlying value of the company has not changed.”

Rewriting this for a city…
All cities have a set amount of land that stands within the city. A land split is a decision by a city’s council to increase the number of lots that are standing within its area by issuing more land titles to current landholders. For example, in a 2 for 1 split, every landholder with one property is given an additional title and allowed to sell off part of their property, so if the city has 100,000 properties standing before the split, it will have 200,000 after a 2-for-1 split.

A property’s price is also affected by a land split. After a split, the property’s price will be reduced since the area of the property is reduced, and the number of standing lots has increased. Although the number of standing lots has increased, and the price decrease, the overall market remains constant.

A land split is usually done by cities that have their land price increase to levels that are either too high, or beyond the price levels of similar cities in their region. The primary motive is to make land be more affordable to ‘small’ residents even though the underlying value of the city has not changed.

This almost literally works for a city, except in Vancouver, a 4 for 1 or 6 for 1 split are necessary to bring the values down to where they would be affordable to most.

Pierre Elliot said that the state had no business in the bedrooms of the people. What would he have said about the tiny number of people who wish to impose their housing aesthetic on complete strangers. It’s weird evangelism.

There are so many absolutely repellent new houses being built today – the new Van Specs – the two bunker suites abominations. Why don’t the Preservationists get worked up about those?

Case in point – a new listing of a brand new “luxury” house at 2821 McGill. Is some latter-day Kluckner going to create a watercolour and wax eloquent about its heritage qualities?

Or will it be included in a new edition of the book: What Not To Build.

The older, oft-maligned, Van Specs had an honest ugliness; rationally built to minimize cost and maximize footage. And, they were not built with bunker basements.

One of Vitruvius’ tenets of architecture is delight. What is delightful about tiny bunker basement rooms?

The new Specs are built like 50’s Cadillacs with fins – pretentious useless expensive gewgaws.

Our 100 year old plus house wouldn’t get anyone’s heart thumping – it is decidedly vernacular, but it has a huge bay window on the side that does for the interior and for views what no mountain of granite, or silly gas fireplaces can accomplish.

Bays create diagonals; a perception of space that builders are trying to do with the misguided open concept. If you’ve never had one you’d wonder why they aren’t more common. Architect Duo Dickinson has an excellent analysis of this in his first book: The Small House.

To be honest, the city doesn’t gain much by replacing one single family house with a larger, more expensive single family house. I’d like to see changes where character home preservation is incentivized by stratification and density bonuses, turning one house into 3 or 4 FAMILY sized units. This is the good part of the character home review. Likewise, for replacement incentivize either a passive house standard (something with environmental benefits that is worthy of the land value) OR allow for gentle infill to 3-4 family sized units. Implement design control if necessary to preserve the feel of the neighbourhood. Disincentivize building monster homes with low density, built to bare minimum standards. They are simply the tear downs of tomorrow.